XXXVI : Appendix. 
_ surveys (General Frome having formerly been Surveyor General of South 
Australia), I have been a good deal struck by the meagreness of information 
exhibited when the practical details of survey are under consideration, and 
the inapplicability of English methods and even General Frome’s colonial 
methods, to the survey of New Zealand, 
The rude method of measuring lines by “plumbing the chain” is the 
only one used and recommended in connection with the Ordnance survey, 
and the probable amount of error in chaining alone is stated by General 
Frome (page 47) to be 1 in 1000, or 8 links per mile, a greater amount being 
often allowed when surveying for small scales, according to the nature of the 
ground passed over. 
In this Province the total error, including both the angular and linear 
work, must not exceed eight links per mile, as tested by the direct length 
between the trig stations to which the work is tied, the traverse being 
usually one-half and sometimes twice as long as the direct distance between 
these points. And whilst this error is admitted as an extreme, several of 
our surveyors do not average more than from one to three links per mile 
when subjected to the severe test of traverse reduction hereafter referred 
to. 
In Otago the detail work is all founded upon long and sometimes intri- 
cate traverses, which it is absolutely necessary to have executed within a 
small limit of error, and subjected to the severest tests to ensure accuracy. 
Nearly all the distances of boundaries of properties, opposite sides of 
road lines, areas, etc., are calculated from,.and depend upon the accuracy, 
both angular and linear, of the traverse work, and the whole of the more 
minute topographical details which accompany the plans of section and 
traverse work, are obtained chiefly by observation with the theodolite alone 
from the stations of the traverses, and from points fixed by observation 
with the theodolite along the various section lines, 
The surveyor is required to refer the direction of each of the traverse 
lines as well as all section boundaries, and, indeed, every line of the detail sur- 
vey to the standard of a single meridian—viz., that of the initial station of 
the meridional circuit, and one of the chief uses of the triangulation is that it 
furnishes a means by which this can readily be done. He is further required 
to furnish tables (called traverse tables), showing the position of each of 
his pegs (the mark put into the ground at every angle throughout the detail 
survey) on the meridian and perpendicular of the trig station at which his 
traverse starts, and further to close every traverse at another trig station. 
This necessarily involves a large amount of computation; but it enables 
the Inspector to ascertain the amount of error in the surveyors’ work, even 
without inspection in the field, unless the tables are wilfully falsified. In 
